That was the theme this week at the Stewart Health Center at Springmoor Retirement Village, where I preached to my beloved congregation of people who no longer have the capacity to run around busily. Bodies and minds that don't quite work the way they used to, and yet... each and every person is completely beloved of God and can therefore wait and wonder and rejoice. You can listen to the message, recorded live, here.
Isaiah 11:1-10
Come Holy Spirit. Show us who you are and how you are. Let you Word be the Word that is heard today. Amen.
I have been noticing something recently. I don’t think it’s anything new, but I have noticed that we – people in general – spend a lot of time talking about how things are supposed to be.
Take the weather – at the beginning of October it was 100 degrees, way hotter than it is supposed to be! Then at the end of the month it was in the 40s, way colder than it is supposed to be.
Then there are parents and children: are children wilder than they are supposed to be because their parents are not controlling their behavior, or are parents more protective than they are supposed to be, never allowing their kids to get in trouble or learn from their mistakes?
It comes up over and over – people aren’t supposed to be so rich, or so poor, or so sick, or have it so easy. There are even people who might say the pastor is not supposed to wear jeans and sneakers to a worship service! And yet… here I am.
We seem to have some pretty strong ideas of how things should line up.
Which is why it is always so surprising to read passages in the Bible like the ones we heard today. Those passages seem to be exactly opposite of everything we “just know” about how things are supposed to be.
Take the first reading. Isaiah is encouraging the Israelites, who are about to have a really, really hard time in captivity… and his encouragement is that the big promise – their big redemption is going to come from a stump.
Many people would not look for something new in the leftover end of a tree that has been cut down.
Or say you are a shepherd… every shepherd knows that you do not let a wolf into the pen to sleep with sheep! And yet, in this new time that Isaiah talks about, brought on by a branch from a stump, wolves will lie down with the sheep.
Is it that the sheep will no longer be in danger, or is it that the wolves will no longer want to hurt sheep?
And then there is the one that horrifies me most: a baby playing near the hole of a snake. Who would DO that?!?! And yet… what if the pains of our world were gone? What if babies were safe everywhere, even by a snake’s hole.
What if that is how creation was meant to be, and our sense of how things are supposed to be is based not on the perfect creation of God, but of our own experience of a very broken world?
Now this is a hard thing. It’s hard to remember that God is different than most of our experiences ever… that our common sense is not God’s common sense. And yet, when we have spiritual experiences, encounter God in some way, we notice how different it is than the world around us. And it is beautiful or magical or just sticks with us in some part of our being in a way we can’t seem to shake.
I wonder if that is why, in the gospel lesson, people from all over Judea came out to see John. He certainly wasn’t wearing the finery of the priests. He ate bugs and honey, not the rich meat and bread from Temple sacrifices. But people from all over the place heard something special when he spoke. Something wild and different, but also something special. Something more like God than like the broken world they were living in.
Even the well-fed, well-dressed, religious expert Pharisees and Sadducees came out to see what was up. John was not like them, but they apparently wanted to see what was going on. Was it because they sensed God’s presence? Or were they jealous that John was drawing a crowd? We don’t really know… but what we do know is that John calls them…
VIPERS. A whole brood of vipers. The dangerous kinds of animals that we keep our babies away from.
John told them that they were looking in the wrong place for their hope – that the hope would not come from what they thought was supposed to happen.
John told them that the ax was at the root and the trees that weren’t bearing good fruit would be cut down. Into STUMPS. Like the stumps of Isaiah, maybe.
John did not say everything would be destroyed and started fresh. In fact, God had promised Noah a long time ago that everything would NOT be destroyed. But the useless trees would be cut down and something new and better would come from the stumps. That is a hopeful message! Unless you are one of the trees being cut down….
It’s true for each of us: we are in a broken world that tells us that greed is good, wealth is more important than work, poverty is a moral failing, and illness is our own fault. None of which are part of God’s original, perfect creation. And the more we look to the world the more pain we feel when we are cut back to stumps.
That is why, even in the most secular parts of our world, when individuals encounter generosity, creative work, compassionate healing, and love for all people we notice that it is different. And we like it. We long for it. Even when it comes from preachers wearing jeans and purple camo sneakers. Even when it comes from the places we least expect it.
Those encounters with God give us hope. It isn’t going to fix the brokenness of the world but it does reassure us that the brokenness has not completely won the day.
It gives us hope for things that seem out of step with “contemporary” values (which are remarkably similar to the ways the world has been broken since near the beginning.)
We hope that this goodness and compassion and love can spread and we recognize it in people who love and care without regard to the prevailing society. We notice it when someone cares about children, or eats with tax collectors or criminals. We notice when people are being fed for no other reason than that they are hungry.
We notice when people (sometimes surprisingly) do things that Jesus did consistently, all the time.
And that brings us to the good news that I bring to you again today:
If you feel more like a stump than a sapling, it’s ok. Because Jesus was the goodness that came from the Stump of Jesse that Isaiah mentioned. If you feel like a stump you can remember that Jesus was a stump, too.
If you feel a little out of step, like somehow things are not as they are supposed to be, remember today’s messages that the way things are is not the way God intends and that ultimately God will have God’s way. And when that happens you will be returned to the perfection you were created to be.
In the words of Jesus, the words we will hear again at the culmination of this Advent time of hope – Fear Not.
Jesus knows you and loves you.
Jesus lived a human life and did not fit in.
Jesus was so far from what people were supposed to be that they killed him!
Fortunately for us, Jesus was also so far from what people were supposed to be that he did not stay dead. The divine Jesus was Resurrected and because of that we too will be Resurrected someday, to be fully the people that God originally created humanity to be.
So here we are in Advent. Living in ongoing hope for a Savior to come again. A Savior who would not stay dead will certainly not be held by any broken earthly ideas of how things are supposed to be.
So be encouraged.
You are loved.
You are wonderful and marvelous and can be who you were created by God to be in every moment of your life… regardless of how the world says things are supposed to be.
Amen.
Come Holy Spirit. Show us who you are and how you are. Let you Word be the Word that is heard today. Amen.
I have been noticing something recently. I don’t think it’s anything new, but I have noticed that we – people in general – spend a lot of time talking about how things are supposed to be.
Take the weather – at the beginning of October it was 100 degrees, way hotter than it is supposed to be! Then at the end of the month it was in the 40s, way colder than it is supposed to be.
Then there are parents and children: are children wilder than they are supposed to be because their parents are not controlling their behavior, or are parents more protective than they are supposed to be, never allowing their kids to get in trouble or learn from their mistakes?
It comes up over and over – people aren’t supposed to be so rich, or so poor, or so sick, or have it so easy. There are even people who might say the pastor is not supposed to wear jeans and sneakers to a worship service! And yet… here I am.
We seem to have some pretty strong ideas of how things should line up.
Which is why it is always so surprising to read passages in the Bible like the ones we heard today. Those passages seem to be exactly opposite of everything we “just know” about how things are supposed to be.
Take the first reading. Isaiah is encouraging the Israelites, who are about to have a really, really hard time in captivity… and his encouragement is that the big promise – their big redemption is going to come from a stump.
Many people would not look for something new in the leftover end of a tree that has been cut down.
Or say you are a shepherd… every shepherd knows that you do not let a wolf into the pen to sleep with sheep! And yet, in this new time that Isaiah talks about, brought on by a branch from a stump, wolves will lie down with the sheep.
Is it that the sheep will no longer be in danger, or is it that the wolves will no longer want to hurt sheep?
And then there is the one that horrifies me most: a baby playing near the hole of a snake. Who would DO that?!?! And yet… what if the pains of our world were gone? What if babies were safe everywhere, even by a snake’s hole.
What if that is how creation was meant to be, and our sense of how things are supposed to be is based not on the perfect creation of God, but of our own experience of a very broken world?
Now this is a hard thing. It’s hard to remember that God is different than most of our experiences ever… that our common sense is not God’s common sense. And yet, when we have spiritual experiences, encounter God in some way, we notice how different it is than the world around us. And it is beautiful or magical or just sticks with us in some part of our being in a way we can’t seem to shake.
I wonder if that is why, in the gospel lesson, people from all over Judea came out to see John. He certainly wasn’t wearing the finery of the priests. He ate bugs and honey, not the rich meat and bread from Temple sacrifices. But people from all over the place heard something special when he spoke. Something wild and different, but also something special. Something more like God than like the broken world they were living in.
Even the well-fed, well-dressed, religious expert Pharisees and Sadducees came out to see what was up. John was not like them, but they apparently wanted to see what was going on. Was it because they sensed God’s presence? Or were they jealous that John was drawing a crowd? We don’t really know… but what we do know is that John calls them…
VIPERS. A whole brood of vipers. The dangerous kinds of animals that we keep our babies away from.
John told them that they were looking in the wrong place for their hope – that the hope would not come from what they thought was supposed to happen.
John told them that the ax was at the root and the trees that weren’t bearing good fruit would be cut down. Into STUMPS. Like the stumps of Isaiah, maybe.
John did not say everything would be destroyed and started fresh. In fact, God had promised Noah a long time ago that everything would NOT be destroyed. But the useless trees would be cut down and something new and better would come from the stumps. That is a hopeful message! Unless you are one of the trees being cut down….
It’s true for each of us: we are in a broken world that tells us that greed is good, wealth is more important than work, poverty is a moral failing, and illness is our own fault. None of which are part of God’s original, perfect creation. And the more we look to the world the more pain we feel when we are cut back to stumps.
That is why, even in the most secular parts of our world, when individuals encounter generosity, creative work, compassionate healing, and love for all people we notice that it is different. And we like it. We long for it. Even when it comes from preachers wearing jeans and purple camo sneakers. Even when it comes from the places we least expect it.
Those encounters with God give us hope. It isn’t going to fix the brokenness of the world but it does reassure us that the brokenness has not completely won the day.
It gives us hope for things that seem out of step with “contemporary” values (which are remarkably similar to the ways the world has been broken since near the beginning.)
We hope that this goodness and compassion and love can spread and we recognize it in people who love and care without regard to the prevailing society. We notice it when someone cares about children, or eats with tax collectors or criminals. We notice when people are being fed for no other reason than that they are hungry.
We notice when people (sometimes surprisingly) do things that Jesus did consistently, all the time.
And that brings us to the good news that I bring to you again today:
If you feel more like a stump than a sapling, it’s ok. Because Jesus was the goodness that came from the Stump of Jesse that Isaiah mentioned. If you feel like a stump you can remember that Jesus was a stump, too.
If you feel a little out of step, like somehow things are not as they are supposed to be, remember today’s messages that the way things are is not the way God intends and that ultimately God will have God’s way. And when that happens you will be returned to the perfection you were created to be.
In the words of Jesus, the words we will hear again at the culmination of this Advent time of hope – Fear Not.
Jesus knows you and loves you.
Jesus lived a human life and did not fit in.
Jesus was so far from what people were supposed to be that they killed him!
Fortunately for us, Jesus was also so far from what people were supposed to be that he did not stay dead. The divine Jesus was Resurrected and because of that we too will be Resurrected someday, to be fully the people that God originally created humanity to be.
So here we are in Advent. Living in ongoing hope for a Savior to come again. A Savior who would not stay dead will certainly not be held by any broken earthly ideas of how things are supposed to be.
So be encouraged.
You are loved.
You are wonderful and marvelous and can be who you were created by God to be in every moment of your life… regardless of how the world says things are supposed to be.
Amen.
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